Her name is Valerie Jones. Don’t bother looking up her work. She’s not in the industry. And she’s not even really an artist. Plus I’m pretty sure she’s married and may not go by Jones anymore. What she IS, is a very kind, generous, and obviously talented woman who I had the good fortune to know for a time (we’re talking over 30 years ago now).

Did you ever know one of those people who was good at everything they tried? And it just didn’t seem like there wasn’t anything they couldn’t do? Well Val was one of those people. What do they call them? A renaissance man? Or in this case, woman. It would be easy enough to just thank her for this piece and leave it at that, but I owe her so much more. I’ve always led a pretty boring life. But because of her friendship, it became a little less so. She opened my eyes to so many things during our friendship. For example, she introduced me to sushi. Taught me how to be a vegetarian (for a while, at least). And took me to my first Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey Circus. Just the kind of mildly adventurous things I never would have sought out on my own. Now these may all seem like silly, trivial stuff. But never underestimate how precious a gift it is to expand someone’s horizons.

About the art. The first thing I have to apologize to all of you for (and probably her as well) is the scan. As you can see from the date, the drawing is over 30 years old. It’s done on a large (16 x 20) sheet of pulp drawing paper that has gotten pretty wrinkled over time. Also, as you can probably tell, the drawing is done in pencil. So when I tried scanning it, the wrinkles caused a lot of shadowing that may be confused with Val’s shading work. I probably should have tried to flatten out the piece a little before scanning. I just didn’t think it would be this bad. Hopefully you guys can still get a good enough idea of just how talented this lady was (and probably still is). Especially on something she did just for fun.

I may no longer be a vegetarian. And I may not think of her every time I eat sushi. But I will always remember the fun, silly things she got me to try. So thankful for all of her caring, her kindness, and her warmth. And so happy to have this lovely memento of our friendship.

Be safe everyone!

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